Avenues and barriers to residential mobility among single mothers

Longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are combined with local census data to examine single mothers' patterns and determinants of residential mobility between poor and nonpoor neighborhoods in the United States. Moving from a poor to a nonpoor neighborhood is facilitated by marrying and by obtaining employment and is impeded by age and home ownership. Even net of numerous controls, African American single mothers are substantially less likely to escape poor neighborhoods and significantly more likely to move into them than their non-Black counterparts. Neither receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children nor adult coresidence significantly reduces the likelihood that single mothers will move from a poor to a nonpoor neighborhood.